LYMPNE

 

Well, this is where I spent my childhood. When we first moved there, it consisted of more or less just one main road, Stone Street, and a small council estate called Belcaire Close. It had an airport, a couple of small engineering businesses, a castle, roman ruins, church, post office, general stores, and one pub, (although there was a pub in the tiny hamlets at either end of the village). Now it is a lot bigger. The airport has gone, replaced by an industrial estate, there are more houses, there's Port Lympne Wildlife Park at what was once a big private house, the castle is used for weddings, and there's now just one general shop.

The Roman ruins, now called Stutfall Castle, are what's left of the shore fort they built, which they called Portus Lemanus, derived from the Lympne river. That was derived from the old British word for an elm tree. This in turn, gave its' name to Port Lympne. Now, of course, it stands some miles from the shoreline.

We moved to Lympne in 1952. At that time, Lympne Airport (almost opposite our house) was home to Silver City. They ran a small fleet of Bristol Freighters, taking passengers and their cars to first to Beauvais, and then to Le Touquet in France, from the wartime grass runway. Later, Silver City moved to Lydd, and a concrete runway was laid down for Skyways to operate their fleet of Avro 748s.

Here's a harkback to those days of noisy old freighters...........

There was also a very nice gentleman who gave pleasure flights in his brilliant blue DeHavilland Dragonfly

Some things have not changed though..................

The castle is actually a palace built by Archbishop Wolseley. My son was married there. When I was a child, it was a private residence, owned and lived in by a family who ran a stud farm. It then passed to an American family, and is now part of the Aspinall organisation, who also own Port Lympne. Its present good condition owes much to Scottish architect, Sir Robert Lorimer, who rescued it from ruination, and turned it into a single large house. 

From the terraces at the rear can be seen the whole of Romney Marsh.

It stands bang next door to the parish church of St. Stephen. 

When I was a teenager, I used to ring bells at the church. I rang No.3, but the treble bell used to really annoy me. It was cast at a later date than the others, and had a thinner, more reedy tone that used to make it sound out of tune with the rest. There was also a carillon, and an elderly gentleman called Mr Harman, the local builder, used to walk up to the church most evenings and play 'Now The Day Is Over'. Now, sad to say, the carillon appears to have gone, and the bell ropes no longer hang in the chancel, but are up a story in the belfry

Despite the lovely lych-gate, and the main entrance to Lympne Castle being just the other side of the war memorial, the former occupants of the castle found it necessary to have a private door in the dividing wall, right by the church door. There was also mounting steps built into the wall on the church side, just inside the lych-gate. I forgot to go and look to see if it still there (along with the bay tree that grew next to it.)

There is also this modern statue in the side Ladies Chapel. Unfortunately, there was nothing to explain it, or to say who it was by. It's obviously a mother and child, but from there, your guess is as good as mine.

At the other end of the private lane from the castle, at the top of Lympne Hill, which leads down steeply to the Marshes, stands the Shepway Cross. The Shepway Cross was built in 1923 for Earl Beachamp. The Cross is a memorial to a cross road. There is a plaque on the bottom which says: 'The right honourable Sir Robert Menzies, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, came to this ancient site on the 6th of August 1967 on his visit to Hythe'. It also has written: 'To the glory of God and in memory of the heroic deeds of the Cinque Ports.' On one side of the Cross is the virgin Mary holding Jesus. On the other side are two priests on either side of Jesus, who is being crucified. There is a shield on each side of the Cross.

The Shepway Cross was paid for and unveiled on 4th August 1923 (the same day that the Great War started in 1914) by Earl Beauchamp KG the then Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports upon ground donated free of charge by the then owner of Lympne Castle. 

Most people (including most regrettably the inhabitants of nearby West Hythe and Lympne) seem to think that this monument exists to merely mark the spot where traditionally the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports held his Court for Shepway. It is invariably referred to as the “Shepway Cross” by those who are ignorant of its real purpose. Its true title should be the Cinque Ports War Memorial. Whilst it does reside on a spot traditionally used by the Cinque Ports Court, its purpose was to commemorate the great deeds of the men of the Cinque Ports in all British conflicts (with special emphasis on the Great War). 

The beautiful house of Port Lympne, now owned by the Aspinall Foundation, has 15 acres of terraced gardens, and 300 acres of parkland, now home to the Port Lympne Wildlife Park.

When I was a child, the house was in a very sorry state, having been used as a billet for the nearby airfield.  The one redeeming feature was a pair of white peacocks that flitted through the trees like noisy ghosts. My Dad and his brother, who both worked at a farm almost opposite the track down to the house, would take corn down to feed them, and care for them the best they could. The barracks huts still stand in the car park, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

The house, however, has had a wonderful restoration, as have the gardens, including the enormous Trojan staircase, with its' little rooms opening off either side, between the hedges.